


collide

by Cards_Slash



Series: Inertia or Laws of Motion [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, bad break ups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:25:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8031310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: there’s no happily ever after, but that doesn’t mean the story ends in tragedy.
(sequel to Inertia)





	collide

**Author's Note:**

> reposted from LJ (2010)
> 
> originally meant to set up another sequel, that second sequel did not happen but it can stand on its own.

_side a: I’m getting restless, I’m getting tested_  
“I,” Jim said like he was going to convince anyone when he couldn’t even convince himself. His hands were one on Bones’ left hip and the other up on his waist right-side. His mouth was the dart of pink tongue over pink lips—always fucking _chapped_ lips—and wet-pushy-kisses against his mouth. “Really,” sounded a lot like _move back, like this, against this wall_ than an attempt to pull away. Jim was hot under the gold shirt, and Bones’ hands were tugging at the tight black undershirt because there was skin on the other side. His hands were cool because the air was cool because everything was cold in space except Jim. The lights were bright points of objection over their head, demanding the day be acknowledged while Jim pushed a thigh between his, knees bending, hips rocking. “Need,” was a suck of breath, like the only word that could possibly come next was _you_ and they both knew it. Bones slid his hands up, pulling at Jim’s waist, the small of his back, up to his ribs, wanting closer and less clothes and more time.

More time—oh hell, they’d left _more time_ behind on the green grass of the Academy line when they’d kissed good bye a life of leisure and beamed themselves right up to a world of smooth gray metal and blinking white stars. Everything was black because there was no sun and Bones never understood how he couldn’t get enough when he got plenty. 

Sometimes he thought he shouldn’t be so greedy. Jim smiled against his mouth, forehead-to forehead, breathing in the same shared space. They went still because they both knew it was five minutes to the start of alpha shift. Jim’s eyes closed, lashes to cheeks and his nose bumped against Bones as he said: “to go.” 

His clinging hands and the close brush of his body said _I never want to leave you_ and Bones never would have accused Jim of anything like self control but there it was. When he opened his eyes, he was a Captain with a gold shirt and a ship and a crew and he wasn’t Bones’ lover. More like a stranger, split straight down the middle that wore Jim’s careless smile and didn’t _saunter_ as much as _stride_. Bones kissed his cheek, over the curl of his lip and nodded his head.

“Can’t keep him waiting,” he agreed.

“I’ll find you today,” Jim promised him, because he always promised him.

Bones cupped a hand across the back of his neck, acting greedy—being needy—still didn’t know how this worked, how it should go because he’d never _ever_ been on the other side of ‘not enough time’ before. It hit him in the gut where he kept his regrets and he kissed Jim’s forehead with his one last time when he said: “I love you.”

“Love you more,” was Jim’s promise into his temple before he had to leave.

\--

The thing was, (and it wasn’t fair but it _was_ so they had to _deal_ with it was)—Bones wasn’t ever going to be anything or anyone but Leonard McCoy. Leonard was that boy that done got his _heart broke_ by some bitch with that real _forgettable_ name. It didn’t matter if she didn’t have a name because she had a face and it was seared down into his memory where he couldn’t break free of it. So it was: Georgia Property Rights and some bitch got there first and hurt him best. 

That was the mountain they didn’t talk much about it, just labeled it: the _ex_ because it walked the line between ignoring the person she used to be (to him, she wasn’t ever going to be a person to Jim) and insulting the thing it (but not she) became. 

Bones pretended it didn’t happen and Jim pretended it didn’t bother him but all the pretending in the world didn’t make that mountain any easier to climb.

\-- 

Chapel was the only nurse he trusted. It wasn’t because she was the best and it wasn’t because he liked her better. It was because she looked at him that first day, when everyone was waving good-bye to Earth and their lives and flittering-fluttering-flapping around getting used to space and the chill and bright-bright lights that never faded, and she put her hands on her hips.

She said: “did you ever learn to be nice?”

Bones didn’t smile but he thought about it because he’d scared the hell out of her once. Once—before she came face to face with death and pain and chaos—now that she’d seen something that really scared the hell out of her, a mean-spirited doctor wasn’t anything worth worrying over. “No,” he said.

“Well then we’re going to have a problem,” she told him while the other nurses shot him glances like sizing him up. Brand new doctor and brand new officer and he must have seemed a hell of a lot meaner than he ever felt because they were putting a six foot radius around him. “Because I’m not going to take your shit for the next five years—sir.”

It was his eyebrow that did his smiling for him. She seemed to understand because she didn’t smile at him either but she nodded. It wasn’t a by-the-book superior-subordinate relationship but he liked her best because she wasn’t going to take his shit. The rest of them, they kept their six feet and their ‘sirs’ and they’re careful-quiet peace about his orders and his attitude and didn’t get in his way or question him.

\--

Starfleet was an opportunistic bastard but it wasn’t necessarily _stupid_. Slapping stripes on Jim’s graduating uniform was a shrewd move when the boy was a hero, son of a hero and ready to prove to the world and the universe beyond it that he was damn sure not going to go down in history as a twelve-minute-eight-hundred-lives Captain. It was a publicity hand-job when they reported for duty. 

Reporters screaming for exclusives, babies begging to be kissed and Jim’s careful, tilted smile while his fingers curled into a fist around Bones’ first two fingers like squeezing _save me, God, save me from this_. Jim was a Captain, was a man, was a nothing but a boy with secrets in his skin and flashing lights and introspective questions made him nervous because it wasn’t like there was nothing _to_ tell but nothing he _would_ tell. They wanted to know about his childhood; they wondered about his mother, they asked about his future. Jim’s eyes were wide-and-blue and vaguely frightened, looking like an animal in a corner in _every single picture_ they took of him.

When the frenzy was over, behind solid walls and closed doors, Starfleet laid it out _how it was_. They used big words and fast talk but when it came right down to it, Jim’s Captaincy was conditional. There were rules and there were _expectations_ and then there were _provisos_. An Admiral with a smile and a real reassuring way about him did the explaining like he wasn’t laying out details of how they were slapping Jim with a babysitter and all but outright saying he had a post they didn’t think he could handle. 

Jim was too fucking smart and too damn impatient to handle Admiral talk so it boiled down to: “who” and Starfleet was _kind enough_ or maybe _smart enough_ , (could be _cruel enough_ ) to make freshly minted Admiral Pike Jim’s new babysitter. 

\--

The first month was _no_ and _you can’t_ and _not that either_. Jim worked out his frustrations in the late evenings, after Bones was home. There was nowhere to go for fist fights and hard drinks so there was plenty of time to talk loud and fast and throw gestures around the room. It was hours spent pacing, staring at operating manuals and arguing this-against-that until Bones was tired of regulations and tired of clothes and just plain _tired_.

They didn’t _make love_ on those long nights because Jim was an edge of violence with a film of soft skin over it. It was hands-and-knees and rough-hard pants and Jim’s body over his and in his until he couldn’t think anything except the rock of his body being moved by the thrusts and the frustration. Sometimes it was Jim under him, his shoulders in knots and his hand pushing against the headboard and the ledge over it. Things got pushed, things fell and Jim cursed his name like blasphemy as Bones fucked him.

In the early morning, before the day, Jim was sitting on the couch with his heel against the edge, wearing his boxers and his chilled skin, staring at the PADD of rules and orders with the stylus between his teeth. Bones watched him because the light of the PADD caught his eyes and made them glimmer like they were full of tears and because he wasn’t angry when he was concentrating—just—concentrated. From a distance, he looked like he always had and there was no gold shirt to worry about.

\--

Pike wasn’t exactly, _precisely_ , one-hundred percent _well_. He was _well enough_ and that only meant that his body was in one piece and he wasn’t going to die just from drifting through space. But he wasn’t _well_ and that was the important difference of the matter.

“There’s no chance—” Pike asked him in the solitude of the private rooms. His body was useless to him from the waist down and outside those doors, in the corridors and on the bridge, he acted like it didn’t bother him. He wore his war-scars like a badge of pride but in here he was just a man that had been crippled and wanted to know why. “Is there?”

“If we had gotten to you sooner,” Bones said because he thought he should be kind. Like it would matter how it was said when it came down to it. Pike was crippled forever, numb from the waist down with useless legs and useless feet. He’d left the Enterprise thinking he’d die like they all thought he did and maybe it would have been better if he had. Maybe he would _adjust_ , maybe he’d learn to _cope_ but now—in the private room where Bones ran maintenance on Pike’s body like it was an old car—Pike was bitter and broke and _angry_ about it too. “No,” he said instead of sugar over sour truth, “there’s no chance now.”

“Will there ever be one?” Pike asked him with his eyes closed.

Hope was a dangerous poison but certainty was as good as death. Bones couldn’t close his eyes because he had to see what he was doing. He said: “It’s a big universe, Admiral.” 

Pike’s laugh was a bitter acknowledge of what he didn’t say.

\--

The second month was Jim pushing limits that shouldn’t be pushed. It came down to carefully worded arguments in the corridor and on the bridge and on the turbolift. When the arguments came back to Jim’s quarters (the _Captain’s Quarters_ , of course), they turned dinner sour as vinegar.

“Fraternizing between crew members, especially among the senior crew is _technically_ against regulations,” Pike said between bites of whatever the replicator had spit out for him. Nothing from Earth, that was sure. 

Bones stuck his fork in his mashed potatoes and watched Jim consider the statement with a mouthful of mushy carrots. His eyes were open and bright and there was no threat except in the jumping pulse just below his jaw. That was as good as murder—Bones had learned that over the years. 

“Well, none of us are exactly senior,” Jim said. He waved his hand like it didn’t matter and stabbed his fork through another mouthful of carrots. When he lifted the fork he eyed them, and then past them, to where Pike sat and he said: “you never cared too much about that rule did you?” He wrapped his lips around the fork with obscene satisfaction and sucked the carrots off the tines. 

Pike went a little pink and a little white and then he let the subject drop because he couldn’t stand up anymore and shout down at Jim like the little boy that he was. Bones just shook his head and kept his mouth shut. They were talking _about_ and not _to_ him.

\--

It was dark and Jim was staring at the ceiling, hand on his chest and the other behind his head. Bones was lying next to him—half asleep and not at all awake. The pillows smelled like soap and he couldn’t ever quite get comfortable on them until they soaked up the stink of their hair and the familiar worn in feel of body soil. 

“Sleep,” he mumbled.

Jim just sighed. “I don’t know what to do about him.”

So it was wiggle, shift, arm across Jim in a way that wasn’t comfortable because Jim wasn’t skinny enough and that meant Bones had to get on his side and push his ear against Jim’s arm. It grew sweat and muscle wasn’t as soft as pillows. Jim was tense and Bones couldn’t cuddle brick so they lay against one another rubbing rough surfaces together and throwing off sparks. He yawned and asked: “Pike?” His fingertips curled across Jim’s chest and he could feel the beat of his heart going steady while his thoughts went wild.

The sigh was resentment and Jim said: “him too,” like he hadn’t exactly considered Pike in the midst of all of this. His hand caught Bones’ hand and it wasn’t fingers through fingers but a hand across his and a thumb pushing into his palm. The ceiling was talking back to him until Jim was frowning at it. “Spock,” he said. After a pause, after the silence stretched to snapping and Bones was half asleep and never going to ask for more details, Jim said: “he’s just not right, Bones.”

“Having your planet destroyed and watching your mother die’ll do that to you,” Bones mumbled, “go to sleep.”

Jim let go of his hand, let out a sigh and whispered: “can’t,” like he was saying _I’ve been trying_ when it felt like that was all Jim said anymore. (I’ve been trying: to be what you need, to be what he wants, to learn these rules, to find my feet, to do the right thing, to—) 

So he snoozed and when he opened his eyes again, Jim was staring at the ceiling thinking about Spock or Pike or himself and the chronometer on the wall was ticking away minutes of the night. Bones pushed his elbow against the mattress and felt it dip. He put his chin on Jim’s ribs. “Could you sleep if I sucked you off?”

Jim looked at him and not the ceiling and he smiled like asking to be forgiven. “Don’t know—just come here.” So it was tug, pull, roll and rearrange until Jim was against his back, kissing his shoulder with an arm around his waist and the heat of his body like a blanket around him. Bones yawned.

“Can’t believe you turned that down,” was a mumble.

Jim smiled into his hair, “I can’t believe it either.”

\--  
The third month, Bones sat across the room from Pike with his hands together, fingers laced and the distinct impression that if Pike could have walked across the room and hit him he would have been beating the hell out of him. It was six months from the Narada and nobody was talking about _cures_ anymore because they’d moved onto the _quality of life_ and dealing with what they had.

“You want to do what?” Pike asked him.

“It’s reversible,” Bones said back. Then they stared at one another, across the room. 

Pike looked pressed and perfect. He looked impeccable, unflappable—impervious. He looked like the man he’d been when he walked onto the bridge of the Enterprise months ago, when he sat in the chair and smiled at the future and thought he had his life in order. Now he stared at a future he didn’t recognize and some doctor talking about rerouting his gut because he had no control over his own bowels and the idea of it must have been _overwhelming_. “Why aren’t you looking for a way to—” 

Bones didn’t look away because the truth was hard and painful and it hurt. Just, it _was_ and he wasn’t going to be sorry just because he had to be the one to make it _real_ at last. “There’s a foundation doing research on rare toxins.” A pause, “There’s not enough…subjects…to study to believe they’ll find any way of reversing the effects within the next few months, probably not in the next few—”

“Subjects!” Pike shouted at him, “they have _me_!”

“—years,” Bones finished.

“No,” Pike said to him without raising his voice, “no. You need to find—you need to concentrate your efforts on figuring out how to give me my legs back—there are ways. The computer said…”

“Your legs are gone. God-damn it man, they’re _gone_ and unless someone discovers a miracle, you’re never getting them back. Accept it.” He’d never been good at dealing with people—never been good at putting up with denial and need and tears. 

Pike stared at him and his jaw got tight, he was fury confined in place so when he moved it was with a whirr of chair’s engine moving. He came closer, knocked against a table and scattered the cotton and gauze and little wooden sticks across the floor. He rolled over them and ran into Bones legs, grabbed him by the shirt and held him there like he could shake sense into the world if he could just shake sense into Bones. “No,” he said. 

\--

Jim found him after the end of shift, in the shower and leaned against the wall and staring at naked skin without asking, exactly, _what’d you do to Pike_ because he didn’t have to ask. It was in the frown at his mouth and the exhausted tense of his arms across his chest. Bones turned off the shower and Jim pulled off his clothes and they made it to the floor outside the bathroom door before they landed in a pile of elbows and knees and hard dicks.

It was quick and dirty, all grunting and rubbing and Jim caught his wrists to shove them against the ground, bit his mouth and his throat and Bones writhed and pulled with his legs around Jim until they found the brief forgiving oblivion of something like sex. 

After, on the floor, he was looking left and Jim was looking right and they weren’t looking at one another. “Is it really permanent, Bones?”

“Yes.”

Jim sat up, back bowing forward, knee bent out to the side and picked at his fingernails, wiped at the come on his gut and then just sighed, forearm across his knee and stared at the wall. He didn’t say a word because there were no words to day. Things hadn’t ever been easy for Jim, and nothing had ever been free and maybe nobody had ever loved him quite right or quite enough, but he’d always been able to fight, always able to run—always, always able to move. When he pushed his hands through his hair it was a certain kind of defeat.

Bones rolled onto his side and drew a circle across Jim’s back and a curl up to his spine, tip-toeing his fingers up to ribs before Jim looked back at him. 

“Why a butterfly, Bones?” Jim asked with his hand cupping around the tattoo on his left hip. He bent toward it, hand to the ground and elbow against Bones’ rib. 

“Fuck if I know,” he said.

Jim was kissing black lines in his skin, tracing them with his tongue when Bones barely remembered they were even there most days because he hadn’t really been sober or _aware_ when they came into existence. He pushed his fingers into Jim’s hair and pulled it back so it stood up straight. 

\--

The next day or day after, he got a message across the bleak distance from where they were (cruising, of course, thinking about thinking about doing a mission) from Devon. She must have been bursting all at the joints and seams wanting to call them because the letters were like a scream across the screen demanding:

_What’d you do to Sunny_

So he sent back a whisper of a reply saying: _nothing but love him._

It took her most of the day to send him anything back and when he got it, there was no apology for demands but his sister’s cheek-slapping version of a kiss saying: _you’re as bad as Daddy ever was._

\--

Pike came back because he had to come back. Across the Sickbay, he requested without demanding that a nurse attend to him because he didn’t need the full attention of a doctor. Chapel looked across the space at him because she had some idea of what happened behind that closed door. Bones shrugged because all men needed dignity where they could find it. 

Ten minutes later, little Nurse Bendai came to find him at his desk. She was a shimmer of pink skin and left-to-right eyelids that always made him stop and stare. Her anger was a cover for her embarrassment as she said flat out that he was needed and wouldn’t tell him why exactly. 

Inside that room, with the doors, that promised privacy to the sick and injured, he found Pike on the floor with his legs twisted one way and his elbows against the floor another. His hair was falling around his face and he was close to beating on the floor. Bones thought that maybe he should have and he thought that it wasn’t safe with everyone there to see.

“God Damn it,” he said to the nurse who jerked back like he’d smacked her, “where the hell did you go to nursing school? Get out of here.” When she was gone, they were all alone in the dry privacy of an empty room. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

“Like I would know,” Pike said and then he hit the floor—all the fury of months in the rapid, rabid, animal beat of his fist against the unimpressed metal. When he stopped there were tears in his eyes and he hung his head straight down from his shoulders and bit out curse words that felt like they were scoured from the inside of his throat.

Bones reached over to press the intercom button on the wall, “send Chapel,” he said.

Pike looked at him, rolling up so it was one elbow to the ground and reaching down to grab his leg to pull it over so it was like sitting again. He sat on the floor with useless legs, head tilted back like a little child staring at their angry mothers and let his hands fall into his lap. “Do what you have to,” Pike said.

Then, at last, Bones said: “I’m sorry.”

\--

The fourth month was a dull spot. Jim was learning tedious things about management that he’d read in a book and hadn’t ever had to put into practice. It was one page of paperwork after another and he was wasting time, nagging Bones in Sickbay.

He sat in the chair behind the desk with his finger hooked on the waistband of Bones’ pants, tugging at them saying: “you’re never busy here, come see me on the bridge.”

“I don’t belong on the bridge,” he said back and smacked the hand and the finger wiggling under the waistband of his pants. “Besides, I’m busy.”

“Polishing shelves,” Jim said like there were better things for Bones to polish and better places to do so. But he huffed and sighed and stood up to get back to the reality of management. A peck on the cheek was an obligatory gesture but Jim’s little bump against his face—forehead to temple—was a smile at the corner of his mouth he couldn’t bring himself to bite back.

Chapel smiled at him in a shrewd way that whispered _I know your secret_ and didn’t bother to say it out loud at all.

\--

Late in the fourth month, Jim was leaning back against the headboard, chewing on a stick of beef jerky, watching dust dance in the yellow lights. He said: “have you ever heard of Kolinahr?” 

Bones was rereading surgical procedure—(again)—and shrugged his shoulders. “Should I have?” There were things he didn’t know that he didn’t know and couldn’t begin to guess where he failed to learn them from. 

“I think Spock’s going crazy,” like it was so trivial it wasn’t a real concern. He drew in a sigh and chewed on the jerky until it was as maddening as a cow chomping cud and Bones turned to glare at him. Jim stared back because he must have thought he said something that needed an actual response. “You’re a trained psychiatrist.”

“He’s a Vulcan,” Bones said, “I’d have better luck trying to talk to a—warp core.” His toes were cold and his socks were missing and Jim was giving him a look that sure as hell didn’t belong on his lover’s face. Bones yanked at the blanket and Jim kept his legs across it so it couldn’t be lifted up until Bones smacked him and Jim smacked him back. “Ass,” Bones said.

“Dickhead.”

The PADD clattered to the floor and Bones yanked the jerky out from between Jim’s teeth to throw it over his shoulder. When he pinned him down it was anger without an edge of giggles to cushion to the fall. Jim shoved at him without a smile and they were wrestling to leave bruises. He ended up face down on the bed with Jim’s elbow against the back of his shoulders and his hot breath in his ear.

There was blood singing in his ears, red-hot spots of pain across his skin and a throb between his legs that made no sense and couldn’t be ignored all at once. His teeth were bare against blankets and Jim’s were hard and damp against his shoulder digging into skin to leave marks behind. He thought of last year, he thought of a man with no name and a couch and the bar and Jim’s hands dripping blood he couldn’t remember drawing while the body on the floor coughed and choked and wriggled like a dying worm.

“Off,” he said.

Jim was across his back, mouth against the shell of his ear, not saying _don’t fuck with me_ because every quivering muscle shoving Bones into the bed was saying it for him. When the pressure went away, Jim pulled so far back he was on his feet at the end of the bed. There were red splotches across Bones’ skin and—

“Oh God,” Jim said. “I’m so sorry, Bones—I’m so—” 

“Shut up,” Bones said.

Jim left in a flurry of excuses that were hollow and hurtful and left Bones with the heat on his skin and fading red marks that were bringing up bruises on skin over his bones. He picked up the PADD and scrolled through the surgical article that looked like a bright blur. When it got late—like _late_ and not just late—he pulled the blankets over his head and closed his eyes and pretended to sleep for a while.

When Jim came back he had tired eyes and a fidget that wouldn’t fade—after a shower and clothes, he came to the bed and leaned down to kiss his cheek over the corner of his mouth and ran a hand down the back of his neck while Bones sat there waiting to be apologized to. “Love you,” Jim whispered.

“More,” Bones agreed.

“Always more.”

\--

Time wasn’t nice enough to skip around, but memory grew white spots. Bones didn’t remember living every day of his life with her. He didn’t remember waking up next to her every morning but he remembered, like he’d memorized her, that she snored if she slept on her left but she liked to sleep on her belly with her arms under the pillow. She liked the white pillow cases because they were like clouds and they just looked clean (but they always looked yellow to Bones). She woke up with a smack of lips and licked her mouth and wiped her chin and when she opened her eyes she never smiled at the world around her but scrunched up her nose and closed her eyes again.

She wanted coffee when she woke up, she liked it black and he wanted to kiss her but she said her mouth tasted like moldy dirt so he would wait. Her kisses were always mint kisses with the burn of mouthwash. She said: “I love you too Leonard,” like rote recitation.

It wasn’t fair, the white places, because he thought (and didn’t know) that he must have been happy in the white places of his memory. He didn’t want to remember her like that, he didn’t want to have been happy with her because he wanted to hate her—he wanted to blame her—he wanted to remember her hands down her thighs, wearing her realtor’s costume saying, _I’ve been sleeping with Tim_. 

Years after, when he was sitting on an abandoned bed with the phantom bump of a kiss to his cheek and the lingering sour taste of, “love you Bones” against his ear, he couldn’t think of anything but her coffee stink in his nose and her distracted (I love you, Leonard) because she was _sleeping with Tim_ all the while.

\--

In the fifth month, Jim stopped dropping hints and issued an order. It came in official wrapping and arrived on his desk with no room for discussion. It wasn’t a suggestion from Jim Kirk, the man he slept next to at night but an official order from Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise. 

He stared at it—turned it upside down and backward and then tilted his head and squinted his eyes and it was the same no matter how he looked at it. So he hit the screen and turned it off and kicked the chair he’d been sitting in. Chapel just went right on doing her own business while he shouted that he was going to the bridge.

Up on the bridge, in the shockingly bright lights that left his eyes aching, Jim was standing and Spock was sitting at his station looking as sane as any Vulcan ever looked, spouting some long spiel about this or that and Pike was nodding his head. Chekov was elbow to the console, chin in his hand and Sulu was leaning back in his seat staring at the screen in front of him like this same argument had been going on for _weeks_.

“Spock,” Jim cut in.

“Furthermore,” Spock went on without raising his voice or acknowledging that he’d been addressed by a senior officer. He stared Jim in the face and opened his mouth. Uhura was biting her lip at her station and Pike cleared his throat.

“Spock,” he said.

The room went silent and cold and Jim put his arms across his chest because Spock nodded his head and closed his eyes. It was all well and good if they were nothing but officers playing in a chain of command. _Admiral_ Pike had the greater authority and _Captain_ Kirk was nothing but a kid with a babysitter playing with a fucking big toy. Spock turned back to his station and Sulu flopped forward to put his hands back on the console.

Jim was grinding his teeth together behind his loose lips and Pike was smiling. Power was power and it always felt good. “What Bones?” Jim asked across the room.

“Nothing,” he said. Then, “Spock. I need you in Sickbay.”

\--

Talking to a warp core would have been easier, would have been more entertaining, would have made more _sense_. Bones hated psychiatry because he hated digging into someone’s brain, sifting through thoughts and feelings and shaking it all down to sentences in a file that reduced someone to neuroses. Removed of all his characteristics, Jim was nothing but a victim of past abuse that was predisposed toward violence and sexual promiscuity with a poor coping mechanism and borderline alcoholism. He never would have survived the Academy if Bones hadn’t scrubbed away the truth of his psych evals the way he’d scrubbed away the scars on his skin.

So he sat on one side of the desk and Spock sat on the other. They wore blue like a mirror, carefully combed hair and Spock’s boxy-thin shoulders. The clock counted down seconds of white noise and nothing while they regarded one another. If Vulcans were logical and Spock were a Vulcan than his logic must have known that indicating and proving his sufficient mental health would have allowed him to relieve them both of this duty.

All they shared was silence. Bones said, “you will not be able to return to your post until I clear you.”

“Then I believe it would be in our mutual best interest to indicate that you have done so on the appropriate forms,” Spock said. He had his hands in his lap and a flat lack of expression on his face. T wasn’t so different—shouldn’t have been so different—wasn’t unusual for Vulcans. Bones remembered that—knew that—how they’d stood around with no expressions and cold logic in cold space. None of them cried because there was no sense in it and because their tear ducts never would have been so illogical as to waste the fluid.

Spock could cry, as sure as his eyes were wet now, he could cry until he was sick from it.

“That’s dishonest,” Bones said.

“It is only dishonest if you believe that it is not the truth, Doctor. I believe I will leave such a determination to your professional judgment.” There was a dead tremor to his words that wasn’t anger and wasn’t fear and wasn’t even concern. Spock stared like he was only waiting to be told his answer so he could process it—like a _computer_ and when Bones sighed, Spock only kept staring.

\--

“Well?” Jim asked him in the bathroom that night with his toothbrush at the corner of his mouth. He was shirtless, looking too pale without sunshine to give his skin color. His eyes were blue like the fucking sky that they hadn’t seen in almost six months. 

Bones rinsed his brush and spit in the sink and ignored the question that was-and-wasn’t asked.

“Bones,” Jim said before he was spit-and-rinsing and then following him to the bed, “how’d it go?”

“That’s confidential, Jim.” If they were rules-and-regulations, playing by order-of-command and sending one another orders across the ship’s communication system, Jim didn’t get to ask him (well) in their bathroom and get the answer he wanted. 

“I’m the Captain,” Jim said.

Bones was hanging onto the blankets, stripped halfway down the bed and staring across the mattress to Jim standing there with his hands on his hips over his black-standard-issue boxers. There were little insignia on the fabric and it was stupid to look at them now when he was trying to count to ten and making it to two and then he dropped the blankets. “Fine,” he said as the turned around and grabbed his pants off the chair he’d dropped them on.

“Where are you going?”

“You’re the fucking Captain,” Bones said over his shoulder as he grabbed his boots and his shirt and left his socks wherever they were—he never could find them. “I’m your fucking subordinate and we’re not supposed to be fucking.” 

The doors were sliding open when Jim grabbed him by the elbow and it wasn’t a Captain but a little boy that pulled at him and said: “Bones,” and if he were a better man or a better person or anyone but who he was, he would have dropped his clothes and hugged Jim until that edge of worry in his eyes went away. 

He couldn’t be anything but what he was and he felt the anger in his chest like a razor against his ribs. “What?” 

“I’m sorry,” was a whimper and a whisper. But “stay,” broke him down until he was ashamed of himself and furious about that too.

\--

The message was from Devon but it sounded like she was impersonating Granny. It said:

_He’s not her._

No names, no explanations, no theories, no questions, nothing at all that Devon threw at him and he had nothing to say back to it except _nothing_. She hated silence and he had figured out years ago that if he said nothing at all, she would figure out all on her own that he hated her in moments like this when she slapped him in the face with what she thought was the truth.

\--

It was month seven and session six when Spock turned his head to look at the chronometer set in the wall. Bones was leaning back in his seat, one foot on a container he’d tossed under his desk last week and found to be a great footstool. The PADD he was supposed to be making notes on was covered in scrolls and circles because he was bored for an hour every time they sat here. 

Spock never moved and only rarely blinked—and his eyelids weren’t quite human either—his breath was a perfect ten per minute and his pulse at his throat was hard to count but Bones was sure it was somewhere around one hundred and eighty. Maybe more or maybe less—it didn’t matter. Physically, Spock was a perfect score on the annual health evaluations. 

“Doctor,” Spock said, “I am scheduled to accompany the Captain on an away mission in approximately fifteen minutes. I believe we can safely end this session at this time.”

Bones tossed the PADD on the desk and didn’t even attempt to hide the doodles. He leaned forward and put his elbows against the edge of the desk. “Tell me one thing,” he said, “I’ll let you go if you tell me one thing.”

Spock went blank again, back inside his head, through his memories and when he came out again, he said: “my Mother sang me to sleep.” His eyebrow asked if that was sufficient and Bones waved his hand to make him go away.

\--

“Bones,” Jim said from the desk where he was scrolling through his messages, “stop being a bastard to Devon.” It was a half turn and a half stare from the corner of Jim’s eyes and no smile on his face. He was Sunny, like sunshine, and Bones was a chance of rain that was always a thundercloud.

“I’ll decide how I want to be to my own sister,” Bones said back.

“Ass,” Jim said. He was typing a response to whatever Devon said, offering explanations or excuses or empty assurances that it was all just fine and perfectly okay. It wasn’t unhappy, it was just reality and white spots and Bones being stubborn. It was Spock’s blankness and Pike’s embarrassment and somewhere between the two, Chapel was nothing but professional, not taking any shit. Bones was sitting on the couch because the bed was where they slept and Jim was wearing his gold-fucking-shirt still. “We should fuck.”

“Why?” Bones asked.

Jim snorted, “because I want to fuck you.”

So sure, why not. 

They fucked.

\--

Pike was in his private room with his half ruined body and Bones wasn’t showing him how to maintain the surgical alterations because Pike already knew how. It was just—he hadn’t adjusted to the thought of it yet so he was disgusted by it, by his own body, by his own life and there was a livid, pulsing hate that was as sure as the stink of liquid shit in the room.

He was crouching, gloves on and holding a container of shit and a white washcloth when Pike said—from over his head— “He’ll be a good Captain,” like, maybe, he’d been waiting for the perfect moment to say it. Bones didn’t look at him, didn’t acknowledge the words or the meaning behind them. “Maybe one of the best—he’s so damn determined, I could see that in him, you know, back in Iowa. Bloody-nosed kid drunk on cheap beer but I could see it.”

Bones shifted on the balls of his feet, set the container on the floor, wondering why he hadn’t ever made it clear to Pike that a nurse could have done this as well as any doctor—or better—and kept his mouth shut because the smell was bad enough but the taste of the air made him gag.

“But you’re going to ruin him,” Pike said. He was staring down when Bones looked up. Holding his shirt out of the way so everything could get tucked back into place and secured with no bulges (men had to find dignity where they thought they could) and Bones stood up because he _could_ and walked because he _could_ and left Pike there in his chair with his regrets. 

He drown the silence with the run of water through the disposal system and then stripped off the gloves and threw them out too. When he turned, Pike was facing him, hands across his lap. “You know from experience,” Bones said.

“A Captain’s first love has to be his ship and his crew.” Pike tipped his head, “he loves you more.”

\--

_Bones_ was a swallowed exclamation of shock, was Jim’s fingers against the front of his shirt pushing at him because he didn’t understand. _What_ was a groan and a mumble between their mouths. There was no silence but hot breaths like pants and the sound of the chair coming forward and Jim’s hands pulling at his neck. It was pull-up not pull-down. Bones wanted the fucking gold-shirt-off so he tugged and pulled and heard it rip. He just didn’t care, twisting fists in fabric and yanking until it was shreds hanging open. Then it was nothing but black like the boy that Bones broke rules to sneak on board the Enterprise.

There was black like the man that saved their lives—the earth—that broke rules and regulations and _loved him best_. Jim’s hands were under his clothes, insistent against his arm pits until he lifted his arms. Then it was rough palms and gentle fingers sweeping down. The tap and linger of a hand over his heart before the arms were around his back and squeezing. Jim was too-damn-big when he shouldn’t have been any bigger than Bones. His grip was breath-stealing and he moved his hands down, grabbing at Bones’ thighs just under his ass and pulling up. 

It was arms-over-shoulders and Bones pulled his hair and pressed their mouths together until he felt frantic. Jim was quiet but he wasn’t sure, he set him on the desk and things fell and it didn’t matter because Jim’s hands were against him and it wasn’t _fuck me_ with the lights off. It was a shake of arms and shoulders and the gold shirt was a scrap on the floor, their pants were puddles under their feet and Jim was hot and close and all over him.

\--

_I really have to go_ Jim said in the morning with _I love you more_ like he regretted having to leave the room back out to the hallways and the blinding-bright-bridge lights. Bones smiled after he was gone, feeling the pressure of the bump against his face like one last kiss (like a God damn _puppy_ ). 

Spock was still as furniture and Bones was rereading about Fiona because he had an hour to do nothing and now and again—not often—he read the stupid story trying to figure out why he had kept this one when there were so many. 

He thought of Devon, he thought of Georgia, he thought of Jim looking down at him and (don’t kiss me like that) but it was the echo of a kiss against his temple that kept coming back to him with Pike’s stare (he loves you best). 

“I chose not to attend the Vulcan Science Academy due to what I believe was a correct perception of ignorance and prejudice on their part,” Spock said at five minutes to the end of the session. 

Bones looked at him over the top of the PADD, past his bent knee and said: “do you think you made the right decision?”

“I do not believe that is a relevant topic as I cannot alter the decision. However, if I had chosen differently, we would be dead.” Then he glanced at the chronometer and stood up to leave, “thank you Doctor.”

\--

“Spock’s crazy,” he said in the morning when it was time to get up.

Jim snorted, “for giving up someone like Uhura? You don’t need a degree to know that, Bones.” He was wearing gold again, trying to get the sleep-spikes of his hair to lay flat when not even water would straighten them out. “What kind of crazy?”

“Harmless crazy,” Bones said, “where are you going today?”

“To sweet talk some diplomat about donating a sizeable portion of the natural mineral and crops to the relief effort on Etoll 4.” He kept pulling at the hair on the left side of his head until he offered a smile, “you should come. It’s a lot like Earth down there and I’m sure I can come up with some reason for a doctor to go.”

Like it mattered. Bones rolled onto his side and then up onto his elbow so Jim could kiss him and he said: “sure.”

“Good.”

\--

Years after, like now, he couldn’t remember the first time he forgot to tell _her_ he loved her before he left. He remembered the last time because she was hands-down-thighs in a realtor’s costume telling him about how she’d been fucking another man.

He was busy, that was all, he was busy and she was lonely and there wasn’t enough hours in the day so when he thought about it (sometimes), he thought he always knew that she wasn’t happy, that she wasn’t the girl she’d been in high school because he wasn’t the boy he’d been. 

Captain Kirk wasn’t Jim but Bones was always going to be Leonard McCoy, that boy that got his heart broke. So, down there in the green grass of a planet that wasn’t Earth, beyond the stone patio and into the garden, Captain Kirk was holding hands with some girl a foot or so shorter than him show was batting her lashes and tipping her hips and offering something that the Jim’s tongue-across-his-lips wanted like _yes please_ — 

He pushed his teeth together while Spock talked logic with someone that actually had half a clue what minerals were able to be spared and Bones whispered _don’t_ over and over and over again like a little boy’s prayer. 

When that woman with the dress and the hips and pert little breasts brushing against Jim got on her tiptoes it was pink lips against Jim’s jaw under his ear and Jim’s face turning toward the sound of her voice, his hand on the small of her back and—

_side b: sorry, i had a bad day again_  
Devon said, like a sigh and a shake of her head while she sat sipping sweet-liquored-lemonade, _he’s the boy you dream about in high school_ and she _meant it_ because she hadn’t ever said much that wasn’t the truth one hundred _percent_. Kirk thought (then) that it wasn’t true because it couldn’t be, because Bones wasn’t anything but a pain in his ass and sure he loved him but he wasn’t _loveable_. Bones was hard edges and sharp points and there was no getting close to him.

When he thought about it—thought about Georgia—he thought about (home) Devon on the rocking chair on the front porch after midnight when the sky was so black it felt like a blanket and there was nothing moving in the world but fireflies making love in the dark. He thought of a moment between this and then that when he had a sweating bottle of liquored up lemonade in the circle of his fingers and no idea of what he was doing. He thought of her saying _and no matter what you looked like or how mean you were, he’d have something nice to say about you_. He thought of Bones, laying under him, looking away with those words that came back through his brain now and again ( _don’t kiss me like that_ ).

So it wasn’t like Kirk had _illusions_ about what Bones really was because he knew, as sure as Devon knew the opposite, that Bones wasn’t anyone’s dream lover. He was sharp edges and a poisoned tongue and he had _associations_ and _presumptions_ and _trust issues_ that made him hard to love. Sometimes, Kirk wanted to shake him until Bones was nothing but pieces that could fit back together without the hard parts. Sometimes, he knew like he really _knew_ that he couldn’t have loved Bones if he were anything but what he were.

\--

Frank liked to smack his face when he got _smart_ and _mouthed-off_ when Kirk hadn’t been anything but a kid that had nothing in him but words he probably shouldn’t have said. Every time he got slapped on the face those words just doubled-tripled-quadrupled until he couldn’t think anything except (I hate you, oh God, I _hate_ you so much) and it was brilliant and violent and _twisting_ until he was nothing but what he hated. 

Pike looked at him, across the official orders, like he’d been smacked in the face so hard his gut was rolling over and he was nothing at _all_ but what he hated. He hated the chair and he hated the circumstances and he might have hated Kirk for his legs and his ship but he was smiling like an incomplete mask and nodding his head. He said: “Captain.”

That was where it started; months ago back on Earth, in an office full of freshly slapped faces. Kirk was twenty five (almost twenty six, really) and he wasn’t _experienced_ so they were going to let him have the Enterprise with a few _stipulations_ and if he survived the first year under Pike’s careful tutelage, they might just let him keep the next four all to himself. 

\--

The first month he found out what he couldn’t do—he couldn’t, he shouldn’t, he should-have-read-that. It was one slap after another with Pike in his chair chastising him again and again (like Uncle Frank), right on the bridge where nobody was quite watching but everyone’s ears were burning. 

Kirk remembered that—you could look anywhere but at what you didn’t want to _see_ but you could always hear. Because Frank didn’t usually care too much about where or when or how, if he figured Kirk needed slapped he’d do it where he stood and if he stood in an aisle in a supermarket with everyone looking elsewhere then he would. The little ladies with their little children with the big-round-staring eyes and drool on their chin would flinch at the crack of the slap but they never looked and never saw and never-ever got involved. The whole bridge was full of blind spots and burning ears and Kirk was grinding his teeth until his mouth tasted like blood.

\--

Bones saw him. Sitting back against the couch wearing half his uniform, wearing wrinkles in his black shirt and creases in his black pants, with his white toes catching the edge of the low table that was stacked with PADDs that were loaded with every fucking regulation ever written. Bones saw him when he was yawning and sleepy and tired of _hearing_ about it. When Kirk was still buzzing with fury and tasting blood and he was twenty-five almost twenty-six and he _hated_ rules because he’d always hated _rules_. He didn’t fit inside the box that regulations made for him and they didn’t make him Captain because he did.

Bones saw him in the dim light when he scratched his hand up Kirk’s back from shoulder-blade-to-neck and they were naked to the skin and naked to the truth. He had violence under his skin and Bones was sweet-southern-soothing like a rowboat on the water just letting him work it all out. Every motion was mechanical and every orgasm was rote recitation and if he could have hated this he might have hated it. Bones had his hand against the wrinkles at the back of Kirk’s neck and he had his thud-thud-thumping heartbeat under Kirk’s hand and he was so _naked_ that he was nothing but _honest_ and he took long-deep breaths to get his air back when it was all over. He never told Kirk to move and he never wanted him to go, with still quivering arms and legs around him keeping him there.

It was (I want you) and it was (quiet now, be still for now) and Kirk thought it was something like (take comfort in me) so he wiggled one hand under Bones’ sweat-damp back sticking to sheets and held onto him. Face to his neck, dragging in the salt-scent of him and memorizing with his muscles and skin. Bones kissed his temple, kissed his hair, hand on his shoulder and he never quite said anything because he never was any good at _saying_ things. 

\--

It wasn’t a secret because _everyone_ knew but they didn’t talk about it too much because some men earned respect and some people were just born with it. If Kirk had to take a guess, if anyone ever asked him (not that they would) he would say that Pike was born with it. It wasn’t his face and it wasn’t his voice but settled on his shoulders. So he could walk into a bar brawl with a whistle and a frown and an exceptionally ugly black instructor’s uniform and the whole damn bar would fall silent. When he said (I dare you to do better) some idiot kid just about twenty two years old would figure out what had been staring him in the face for twenty two years too many and that was nobody was going to save him so he had to save himself. Pike could promote a stowaway that wasn’t even _supposed_ to be there, that had been _grounded_ to first officer and he could survive torture and he could smile in front of a crowd and say: 

_I am relieved_

Like for a minute, even just a spattering of seconds, he actually _really_ meant it. It was like wind and wings and Kirk could soar because Pike was born with respect on his shoulders and compassion in his eyes and he would never _lie_ to anyone—not _ever_. So men like Spock who lived by rules and broke down the universe into logical sequences would always, always side with a man who was born with more respect than Kirk could ever _earn_.

If all that were true (and it was, oh hell, it really was), then Pike could have his cake and eat it too and he didn’t have to worry about whispers about how he had his First Officer on the bridge and in his bed and _everyone knew_ just like everyone _knew_ that it was against regulations. 

Kirk had never been too good about giving respect to any man, not even the ones that earned it, so in the second month, when Pike looked across the makeshift dinner table in the _Captain’s_ quarters and said: “Fraternizing between crew members, especially among the senior crew is _technically_ against regulations,” with a quick look at Bones like a wink and a nudge Kirk had no respect for him.

“Well,” he said and let it sigh out like a drawl and he had all fucking day to consider this and the carrots on his fork too, “none of us are exactly senior. You never cared too much about that rule did you?”

Thing was, as Pike stared back at him across the table and Bones shifted in his seat because he was being fought-over not talked-to, Pike had respect on his shoulders, in his spine and compassion in his face like he was _so sorry_ that Kirk was so stupid. Because Kirk was born with nothing and he hadn’t earned half of what he was demanding across the table. 

If he were a better man (if he were a man like George Kirk) he would have had the sense to apologize but he was his mother (burning down houses) and he wasn’t sorry at all when Pike got quiet and pink and stopped talking.

\--

Kirk didn’t have time—not enough to learn everything, not enough to think, not enough to sleep. He didn’t have the _time_ to see and think and _process_ everything at once. So it broke down to pieces that didn’t fit together. There was Pike and _you can’t_ and there was Spock and _you should not_ and there was Uhura _of course,_ Captain. 

Uhura was all muscle under her dress and all gritted teeth, sugar-sweet obedience because Kirk’s shirt sleeves had more stripes than hers. She wasn’t _happy_ and that didn’t make sense when she had been giddy-giggly just three months ago when she was pressing kisses to Spock’s cheek and his jaw every morning before they took their posts on the bridge. Spock had been rigid-and-stiff and as friendly as a brick wall but he had touched her hand, tipped his head, whispered words to her like he _felt_ her.

Now they were cold and she was angry. Pike was lecturing about the very real possibility of encountering hostile forces while exploring the unknown and rules of engagement and the cost of irrational decisions. He was arguing for the greater good and the good of the many while Spock stared blankly at nothing and Uhura stared across the glimmering console at Spock.

\--

Bones held his hand on the couch with his head back against the cushion and his eyes closed like he was sleeping while Kirk read regulations like bedtime stories and operating manuals like suspense novels. He was sighing breaths through his nose and soon he’d be snoring like sawing logs, but for now he was warm weight at Kirk’s side and sweaty fingers threaded through his. He ran his thumb up the side of Bones’ again and again because Bones was real-and-solid-and his.

\--

“Kid,” Pike said behind the privacy of closed doors where he pushed his palms against the side of the wheel chair and lifted himself up to adjust a little left and a little right. (There was, of course, the threat of skin breakdown and pressure ulcers if Pike didn’t shift and wiggle now and again and really, even if he did.) “You were lucky. You knew something I didn’t.”

Kirk was sitting back with his legs crossed and his elbow hard against the arm of the chair. He had his fingers pressed to his lips while he watched Pike struggle and all his mind was full of the clatter and clang of (he’s just a man, just a _man_ ). It wasn’t disappointment because Kirk hadn’t ever believed in anyone but if he could have, he might have, and if he were anyone else he would have seen the words at face value. They would have been vicious poison and his morale would break. Pike could put him back together like a pretty-blond-clone so years from now, when he had sores on his ass and his legs were still long lumps of _nothing_ but extra weight, Pike could say that he’d built a sturdy, stalwart, steady Captain.

“I knew a lot of things you didn’t,” Kirk said, “you know a lot of things I don’t. We both know that this is my ship and it doesn’t matter how I got it because I’m _not_ going to lose it.”

Pike said: “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

Kirk smiled, looked right, at nothing exactly—just because right was where Bones sat and because that smile on his face was nothing but making trouble—when he looked back it wasn’t a smile but a smirk and he said: “you had no better idea when you started.” 

The conversation died with the door opening and Spock was there with official reports and a dead expression doing nothing but staring like he was going blind.

\--

Devon sent him a little letter saying:

_The girls are playing in the sunshine and Granny’s sleeping in her chair. I’ve got flour on my elbows and biscuit dough between my fingers. I was watching my girls spinning circles on the grass and I couldn’t stop thinking that the worst part of everything was how they were going to grow up without a Daddy and it isn’t because he’s dead and gone to heaven but because I couldn’t love him enough to make him stay. When they’re all grown and they ask me why their Daddy left them what the hell am I supposed to say— Like a fool, I started bawling and ruined the biscuits and couldn’t stop thinking about you and it could be weeks before you even see this silly letter so I’ll be over this and onto the next worry but—tell me what I’m supposed to say. If anyone knows what they need to hear from me when they get around to wondering, it’s you._

_(I love you, Sunny—kiss the raincloud for me.)_

Kirk stared at it until it made sense again, like back on Earth, far away in Georgia. Everything was slow and easy and Devon was a bright spot in a dim world that shouted victory against defeat. Bones was singing songs in the kitchen with a wooden spoon and everything _made sense_ for the first time. 

He wrote a little letter back like:

Say: ‘ _What matters is that I loved you every day of your life._ ’ Don’t cry for me, there are better things to cry over.

Days later, when he got a letter back it was signed at one AM in Georgia and it said, (like a smirk and a smack on the arm):

_Like spilt milk._

\--

Bones hadn’t ever been good at _saying things_ unless they were things about what he didn’t want and he didn’t like. If he liked it, if he wanted it, if he _needed_ it he couldn’t say a God-damn word about it. Like somewhere in the thirty one years of his life he’d had everything good beat out of him—it drove Kirk crazy because nobody had ever beat Bones. Everyone had loved him—and maybe that was it, maybe he was spoiled, maybe he didn’t know anything but being loved so he didn’t know that it wasn’t always _forever_ and _unconditional_.

Some people could only love you if you stood real still with your mouth closed, wearing your best Sunday clothes without wrinkles and reciting Bible passages until you could puke from it. Some people could only love you with your eyes closed and a hat over your hair because when they didn’t look they didn’t see the face of someone else they hated until it wasn’t that other they hated but you and Kirk loved-and-hated that about Bones.

When he had to say something, Bones said it in fingertips and lips and soft kisses at his temple. Like elbows against the back of Kirk’s chair and hands on his shoulders through the black undershirt, massaging where it hurt the worst. Thumbs and fingers and Bones’s breath over his head while they both stared at the PADD without seeing a word on it. Same rules, same tedious-fucking-bullshit dragging into the fourth month. 

When the hands slid lower, Bones’ breath was against his temple with a butterfly of a kiss and he said: “I’m starting to feel like the other woman, Jim.” His hands were down Kirk’s chest, coiling up in the black shirt, inching it up and up to show off his pale-white waist. He hadn’t always been quite so _white_ before but four months in space with no light but fake light drained the color out of him. Bones was still tan and still warmer than the chill of the room, rubbing their cheeks together, nudging Kirk to find his mouth. He said: “I’ll argue for more sex if you argue for more studying.”

Kirk had two arms up, head tipped back, catching Bones mouth in a kiss that was upside down and backward, trying to find somewhere to grab onto when Bones was all skin and no shirt. He didn’t have to say that he wouldn’t ever argue against Bones because it was in the touch. He crawled out of the chair and into bed and Bones was over him—against him—drowning him with touch and unspoken words.

When he said: “I love you,” in the afterglow with sweat and stink and come on Kirk’s skin, Kirk said:

“More.”

Bones breathed a snort like a laugh and said: “always more.”

\--

_Uhura_ is what he called her because she came before extra stripes on his shirt sleeves. He wasn’t Captain in the tiny space of the turbolift but she turned on him like he should have known better than to call her anything but lieu-ten-ant Uhura because she’d earned that respect and he should give it to her. He was fumbling fingers while she was a cool stare and a hand on her hip. “Captain?”

“What’s going on with you and Spock?” Because it was month four and he had requisition letters and condolences forms and formal mission reports memorized frontwards and backwards until he was drawing the letters on Bones’ back while he slept without realizing it.

Uhura was _furious_ like bony fists and Kirk had six seconds before the lift stopped so he said: “it’s not—personal—I just need to know, I mean I don’t care except that I need to know that you’re going to do your job and he’s not…” The lift jerked to a stop and her eyebrow was asking him what the hell the end of his sentence was going to be. “…losing his mind,” Kirk finished.

“His mind is fine.” Like it answered the question and she didn’t stay around to explain anything to him because she had work to do and he was wasting her time.

It was twenty minutes later and Pike was sitting across the conference room table from him. He said: “It’s called the Kolinahr; Spock’s been considering it. He’ll finish his commitment here, of course, but I wouldn’t expect him to stay any longer.”

\--

In an ice cave, on a frozen planet, a man from a different world pushed his memory into Kirk’s and drown him in the thoughts and feelings of someone that would never exist in this remade world. Kirk wasn’t the man in Spock’s memory and Spock wasn’t the man from that ice cave. 

So his chest was full of regret for things he couldn’t have changed and he forgot (now and again) about the things that were taken away from him. He forgot about his father, about his mother, about the life he never got to have. All that he knew and all that he could think was about the man that Spock was _not_ and it hurt him in a way that made no sense at all. 

In the memory of another man, the best thing in a hundred years had been the welcome smile of a long lost friend but Spock wasn’t his friend; not here or now and maybe not ever. He gnawed beef jerky while he considered it, while he thought about the difference between a mind and a soul and what he knew about the Kolinahr the _purging_ of all emotions. He didn’t love Spock and he wasn’t especially _overly_ fond of the man but it seemed like suicide and part of Kirk that wasn’t the same as it had been before that ice cave and frozen planet knew that Spock wasn’t _meant_ to kill his every emotion.

Bones was reading surgical procedure and chewing on the inside of his lip when Kirk asked him (ever heard of Kolinahr?) 

It was (no, should I have) and then (I think Spock’s going crazy) and Bones didn’t quite care because he said: _He’s a Vulcan_ like it was the only excuse that he needed not to get involved. Then it was (ass) and (dickhead)—

And all at once he was shoving Bones against the bed with an elbow between his shoulders and there was nothing fun or funny about it. His hands were tight-hard-bruising and his teeth were clenched and he was nothing at all but what he _hated_. He was eighteen in a bar, fighting to bleed and Bones was under him with a keen of pain that he couldn’t quite keep himself from making.

It slammed into his body like a rush of a wave and he didn’t hear Bones say _off_ because he wanted to _hurt_ him because Kirk was angry. Because—

“Oh God,” he said when he was back—away and standing. “I’m so sorry Bones,” (not good enough Jim-mee) “I’m so—” (Sor-ree doesn’t change a thing.)

“Shut up,” Bones said with hot-red welts on his skin. 

(Not a damn thing.)

\--

_Sunny,_

Devon said,

_Don’t let the rain get you down._

\--

They didn’t talk about _her_ in the evenings when the silence was strained and not easy. When Bones was putting space between them and the bruises Kirk left behind were still purple and not healed. They didn’t talk about _anything_ but all Kirk could hear in the silence was (sor-ree doesn’t cut it, Jim-mee, may-bee this time you’ll learn a thing or two) all the things they never _said_. He could hear Bones in his own head, churning the wheels of the same thought again and again about how _she_ used to be.

Georgia Property Rights meant Kirk had nothing but a tent-peg and one hell of a thunderstorm to weather. He wanted to tell Bones that he wasn’t leaving and he wasn’t giving up but he didn’t have time now, right this _second_ to fight when he had Pike and Spock and the Enterprise to worry about. 

Some days, the silence wasn’t strained and Bones’ smile was real-not-faked and when their mouths met it was _like that_ like keeping a promise he made back in a dorm room. Bones’ hands were threaded through his and it wasn’t sex but the simple touch and simple freedom of _love_.

\--

Kirk said: _I’m the Captain_ because he couldn’t say _I can’t watch him drown anymore Bones and I can’t help him because I don’t know him_ because Bones-wasn’t and he-wasn’t any good at saying _things_. But outside of them, out where the rest of the world lived and moved, some _one_ had to help Spock and Bones was the only one Kirk thought _could_.

So long-blank-blind stares at the console and the strange emptiness of solid logic and no emotion wasn’t so painful to watch. So Pike would stop giving him that look that said _he never would have done that if I were Captain_ when it wasn’t that. Bones had lost his father and lost his mother when he was old enough to know that it _hurt_ and old enough to miss them when they were gone. He was a serpent-tongued-southern-belle and a trained psychiatrist so there was no reason he couldn’t help Spock.

Except he wouldn’t and he _had to_ so it wasn’t Kirk his friend and lover, it was Kirk as a Captain. 

Bones stared at him like he didn’t even see him (like he saw _her_ in everything he hated about Kirk) and he said: “Fine.”

He was turning, grabbing clothes and set to get walking away, Kirk said: “Where are you going?”

Then it was: “You’re the fucking Captain. I’m you’re _fucking_ subordinate and we’re not supposed to be _fucking_.”

He caught Bones at the door with his heart hammering in his chest and he was _afraid_ the way he couldn’t be anywhere else. All his fear and all his tears were wrapped up in this man’s body and his hands were clinging without clenching as Bones turned to look at him. They saw one another then, just like they were. Kirk was a little boy that was left behind and Bones was a miserable bastard that was one hundred years old beneath his skin. 

“I’m sorry,” he said (sor-ree doesn’t mean a damn thing, Jim-mee), “stay.”

Bones put his hand against Kirk’s face and said: “Ok.”

\--

Pike watched him across the table while everyone filed out after the first official permission briefing. The away mission was tomorrow at 11 hundred so he had the rest of the night and the next morning to get his brain wrapped around _alien planet_ and study up on whatever other nuances of cultural significance he needed to know. Pike was watching him, elbows against his chair, looking more at peace than he’d been in months.

Seven months hadn’t given the man anything but time to _adjust_ to the chair he sat in.

“How’d I do?” Kirk asked.

“You were very thorough and professional,” Pike said, “and you utilized your various assets well and treated your crew members with dignity and respect for their various areas of expertise.”

Kirk smiled but it was hollow all around the edges of him. “But,” he supplied.

“This time,” Pike said, “there is no but. I think you’re doing a fine job.”

\--

After and then after the first _de_ briefing , Pike invited him for a glass of something red and Kirk said it would be his pleasure. They sat in the balmy heat of the Admiral’s room around a round table with an ornamental bottle of something that didn’t taste quite like wine staining their mouths bright-bright red. 

Pike said: “I loved her, you know.”

It wasn’t a question and it didn’t need an answer so Kirk didn’t bother, just took another sip and let everything break into observation. The medals on the wall for _honor_ and _valor_ and the framed paintings that must have smelled like real paint, and if Kirk touched them he’d feel the texture of oil across canvas. The brass goblets on a shelf, the long length of a purple ribbon, a box on the shelf behind the bed that glittered in the light. There were PADDs stacked to the side that were marked as Pike’s personal property with labels like: _fiction_ and _nonfiction_ and _photographs_. There were diplomas on the wall, certifications of accomplishment catching the light and signed with ink that was decades old. 

“The ship,” Kirk said at last, “or your Number One?” 

Pike smiled into the lip of his cup with the air of a secret and took a sip before he ran his red tongue across his reddened lips and said: “Don’t you know?”

Every certificate and every honor, every lesson and every success had brought Pike to this, to the best room on the best ship, in the best fleet—and it had been ripped away from him. When Pike looked he saw everything he’d had and not everything he _had_ because everything he wanted was what Kirk wasn’t willing to give back—not ever.

So he knew, like she must have known once, and Kirk nodded his head. “I know.”

\--

Devon said: _I’m teaching Jenny to sing_ and Kirk could see her on the old quilt, out in the Georgia sunshine, singing sweet lilting songs to her chubby-cheeked baby cooing right back to her. 

Devon said: _Granny’s making a new quilt_ and Kirk could smell that little room in the back where the quilt frame stood and smell the age of the wallpaper paste barely holding to the wall and the fresh scent of new fabric and thread.

Devon said: _Take care of him, please_ and Kirk saw Bones staring out a window that wasn’t there because they were in space where everything was black and nothing was green. He thought about promises and he thought about expectations and he told Devon he’d be sure to do just that when he knew that she wouldn’t believe a word his fingers typed because she’d know sure as anything that he didn’t mean it, not really, not right now.

Now he was half in his own brain and half in Pike’s and Bones was all by himself over there.

He said: “We should fuck,” when he should have said, _I love you right now_ because he thought, maybe, he wasn’t sure. (Or maybe he was just afraid.)

\--

_I love you_ was Bones’ open mouth gasp, like prayers, against his cheek and neck and his mouth. His shivering-quivering hands were on Kirk’s shoulders because he’d swept into their room like a storm and pulled and pushed and tore his clothes off. He was whispering it over and over, under his breath as he gripped naked skin and arched until it was close-close-closer. The touch was frantic and it washed over him like they were back in the dorm room in an empty building, the last living things making love just because they’d survived and all the horror hadn’t quite—hadn’t _really_ sunk in under their skin yet. Bones was pulling and Kirk was pushing and when Bones said: “I love you,” again Kirk kissed him so hard he could taste the words on his tongue.

“I love you,” he panted back, open lips over open lips and Bones’ eyes fluttered, and closed. Kirk kissed the corner of his eye, cheek to his temple, arms pulling him closer and it wasn’t sex it was _this_ and Bones’ arms were holding him there where it was safe—so Kirk held him right back.

\--

Spock was crazy but he was still better with numbers and facts and percentages than Kirk could hope to be. Pike said _the key is utilizing your assets_ like a mantra and Kirk figured that he had two important assets when it came to the peculiar princess of Etoll 4. One of them was Spock with his exact calculations as what they could offer and what they required.

The other was how blue his eyes were when this woman here had nothing but sapphire rings and long blue sashes hanging around her court. He didn’t know for certain but he was almost entirely _sure_ if the way she was looking at him, biting her little fingernail, was any indication that she wanted his eyes. (All the women loved his eyes, like all the men he’d ever had wanted his ass.) 

Bones was a sour frown at his side when he excused himself to take a walk around the garden beyond the open doors of the palace. She was close to him, speaking to him in translated standard and pausing at every flower to explain what it was and where it came from like Kirk cared. He was six steps from calling for Sulu and introducing him to his soul mate when the woman turned to look at him.

She was classier than a hoarse-voiced woman in a bar that offered him whatever he wanted so long as he knew how to do it right. She was short and thin and all her curves were broad and just about flat but her hips moved with fluid ease and he couldn’t stop the flickering thought of _oh she’d be a good fuck_ that skipped through his brain along with _she’s been fucked before_ and she had one little finger curling around a leaf and the other hand finding his. 

“You have amazing eyes,” she said to him.

He smiled for her because his eyes twinkled and she moved closer—taking the space between them until he could feel the heat of her body against his and it wasn’t like he didn’t _consider it_ because she was offering it like _throwing it_ at him. When she said: “we do not attract many outsiders,” to him he could smell her breath and it was sweet as candy and she was so close she was damn near a pulse over his skin. He thought (she’s wet for me) when he didn’t even know if her species got wet and he wanted to know and she wanted him to know. 

She was on her toes, with her hand on his shoulder and her lips were against his jaw below his ear, she said: “I believe eyes such as yours would look best in private lighting.” Her words were so close they were kissing his skin and he tipped his head toward the sound, hand on the small of her back so she wouldn’t fall off her shivering toes.

“All you want is my eyes?” he asked.

Her hand was against his chest now, pushing hard to feel through his clothes and she looked up at him through her thick-black lashes as her lips pulled up to show her teeth in a feral smile and he thought ( _fuck_ ) because he’d like to fuck her. “In a private setting I might want more…”

“You’re very forward,” he said.

“I value rare treasures. I would very much like to keep you.”

Rare treasures—he smiled and she smiled and all she saw was his eyes and none of him. Her body was hot and she was willing and he could have had her twice if he had a few less morals. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t wonder or want about it but he chuckled and pulled away and said: “I could never leave my ship or my crew.”

\--

“I believe the mission can be counted as a success,” Spock stated in the debriefing. He took point on the minor details of the mission, who would retrieve the minerals, how they would be stored, and Kirk mumbled off what he’d already decided about transportation and drop off. Pike sat quietly, just observing, and everyone was nodding heads like bobble dolls.

When they were through the door and away to their stations, Pike was still watching him. “You know why we couldn’t last? Number One and me?”

Because Pike loved his ship more than he loved the woman. One or the other of them wouldn’t settle for being second best. Kirk didn’t want to know and he didn’t ask why as he went through the motions of paperwork that should-be so, had-to-be submitted. 

“She would never have been happy with Captain Pike and I couldn’t imagine being happy as Christopher Pike.” He leaned his shoulders back with that same regal authority he carried on his shoulders and it wasn’t cruel because it wasn’t an accusation, it simply was. One man to another and this man’s experience was his only basis for comparison. _She_ couldn’t imagine being tied to a man and his crew and _he_ couldn’t imagine giving up everything for her.

Kirk closed the forms on the PADD and put it to the side. It was elbows to wood and his weight forward off the seat as he leaned in closer. There was nothing recording the sound of their voices and there was no meaning to stripes on their sleeves anymore. He said: “Would you be happier if I hadn’t saved you, Pike?”

Pike shrugged, “I would have died a hero,” like he’d thought about it night after night after night until the thought was down his spine and in his dead legs just making him into everything he hated. It was a long God damn road back to something human from where Pike was.

“Thing about dying a hero,” Kirk said, “is that you’re still dead. After a while, people forget dead heroes.” He pushed his palms to the table and stood on his feet. It was fifteen steps to the door and whatever beyond it. Down in his quarters, Bones was furious like something _breaking_ and Kirk knew it because the man had walked away from him without a word and maybe he had an idea of _why_ and maybe that made him _furious_ all the same.

“Like your father?” Pike said to catch him at the door, “you think nobody remembers him?”

So he stopped because it was a hook and his father was bait—just like he’d always been and there were bubbles like broiling in his chest and he wanted to say (you’re not him and you’ll never be) but Pike was waiting for it, for a fight, for a comeback, for anything that meant he won this ridiculous game of tug of war he thought he was playing. The doors were open and Kirk was staring at the ground. “I think if he had a choice he would rather be alive and forgotten than dead and remembered.” Then he looked up again—out through the open doors at the busy bridge and left Pike because whatever he wanted to say or thought he _needed to_ say didn’t make a damn bit of difference anymore.

“Spock,” he said, “take the conn, I’ll be in my quarters.” It wasn’t regulations and it wasn’t _right_ and he should _not_ have but he did it anyway and everyone was looking and _watching_ as he turned in the turbolift and the doors slid shut.

\--

If the room had been torn to shreds, it would have made sense. If Bones had met him at the door with fists and tears and swear words, it would have made sense. It would have been _expected_ it would have been _normal_ or maybe just _familiar_. Kirk could fight fists and broken dishes, he knew about stomping on glass shards and he’d been hit enough he knew how to fall. 

The bed was made—hastily like they left it that morning—and there were clothes on the floor where they’d gotten dropped. The desk was stacked with all his manuals and regulations and history books, the shelves were still gathering what dust they could from the carefully filtered and recycled air. 

Bones was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head down and the ring from his left pinkie on his right middle finger like he was contemplating the worth of it. His hair wasn’t combed and gelled and perfectly placed because it was a loose wreck from fingers tugging through it. All at once and for no fucking _good_ reason, Kirk thought that when she _left_ he must have looked something like that. With a wedding ring instead of a class ring and a bottle of whiskey next to his ankle. When he looked up there was a blank whiteness to his face and it wasn’t like he’d been crying—it wasn’t like it _mattered_ at all. Bones stood up and held the ring out and when Kirk didn’t take it he dropped it.

Bones said: “I’m sorry.”

\--

His fist was hot but it didn’t hurt.

\--

So he walked away, with the ring on the floor, with the bed they’d slept in behind his back and it wasn’t like they could _talk about it_ because they couldn’t _talk_ so it was just _over_ and Kirk was being _left_ for nothing. 

Not nothing, for something—for nothing he did, for something _she_ did four-almost-five years ago when she looked at Bones (who was only Leonard, really) and whatever she said, however she said it, whatever she’d _done_ had changed _everything_.

Kirk hated her like he’d hated her in that sunny shop in Georgia, when she looked at him and knew, like he knew, like Bones knew that it didn’t matter how long or how much he loved the man because she was there _first_ and her signature was across his heart. 

When his eyes closed, he saw nothing but black but Devon was whispering into the blackness _he knows_ like _he remembers_ everything _about her_. 

\--

“Damn-it-Jim,” was Bones slap and smack, yanking his elbow, trying to pull himself away from Kirk’s first around his arm. It was stumble-fumble-fall and then _slam_ against the wall so hard that all of Bones’ breath was a sob cracking apart in his open mouth. 

Kirk was fist-over-wrist and four bone-hard knuckles shoving Bones flat against the wall. Blank walls, nothing walls, no valor no honor, no ribbons and no life because when he left Earth behind there was nothing he wanted-needed-had to bring except this man right here. He thought, tilting on the edge of insanity that if he could have sat Bones on a shelf and left him there he might have been happy just to look at him thinking what-could-have and not living what-was.

And Kirk’s fist was against the wall like:

_Damn_ -it- _damn_ -it- _God_ -fucking- _God_ -damn- _it_.

\--

Bones pushed him and it was hands and legs and fists. 

So there was two foot between them with Bones’ shoulders back against the wall and his was struggling to breathe like there was no air in his lungs, like there was no air in the room and his hand was in his hair, pulling at it. There was sweat on his forehead and over his lip and the whole room was filled with the sound of one hard pant after another and Kirk’s heartbeat. 

It was grinding gears and smoke and fire and then Bones pushed his elbow against the wall to stand up straight. He said: “you wanted to fuck her.”

The accusation hung there, in the air, past the rushing sound of blood and heart beat in his ears. His shoulders were so tight they could have snapped like rubber bands and Bones was just watching him not-saying (you _did_ fuck her) and it was absolutely _ridiculous_ like every romance heroine every written. Kirk laughed because he couldn’t _think_ and he said: “of course I did.”

Bones looked like he’d been slapped, head falling down. His hands weren’t-fists but loose and hanging, there was no fury in his shoulders and there was no fight in the room anymore. Everything was gray around the edges, blinding bright lights that were nothing like Earth, nothing like real, and just beyond the edges of this room there was nothing but blackness and no sound. Bones licked his lips with his face staring at the floor and when he looked up again, he said: “God damn it, Jim,” like if he hadn’t said it he would have cried. 

“What?” Kirk shouted, “ _God damn me_ what? I _didn’t_ fuck her.”

“You wanted to,” like a slap. Bones was at an angle, getting angry under his skin. 

“So _what_?”

“I told you,” was a shout, cut off at the quick and Kirk was shouting right back: 

“I _didn’t_ touch the bitch!—”

“When we started—”

“ —thinking isn’t doing,” with his hands at his sides curling up into fists and his face felt like a mask of rage but Bones looked like—finally, at last—he was nothing but everything he hated. Like he’d finally gotten angry enough that he could _hurt_ someone instead of wallowing in it for four fucking years. If Kirk didn’t want to strangle him he might have said (you’re so fucking beautiful).

“Oh bullshit,” like a clap of thunder, punctuating the slow boil, “I’ve known you for three and a half years and you were a whore for three of them so don’t _tell_ me that you were _only_ thinking about it because I _saw_ your hands on _her_!”

Kirk was hands on hips, a mask of innocence—mocking an angel, looking like he didn’t care, saying: “did you? Did you see me stick my dick in her? Because I don’t remember you saying _anything_ about regulating what I get to think.”

“Don’t be a stupid bitch,” Bones snapped at him.

\--

Before, like before they loved one another, before they cared, before Bones became something real and solid and _wanted_ like (needed) in his life, before when they were only crashing into one another again and again without trying, he’d found Bones on a bench in a park. 

He’d said: _I loved her_ like it wasn’t past but present tense and he hadn’t ever made it past that.

\--

“Stop making me your fucking wife.”

When Bones hit him it was open-palms on shoulders, shoving at him and words and the world, and it was: “fuck you,” and “fuck _you_ ” until Kirk hit the set of drawers next to the bed and the junk they’d piled on top tipped and spilled and Bones was bared-white hissing, (fuck you) through wet clenched teeth.

Kirk had his fingers around the edge of the table and his gut rolling over, saying: “Fuck you,” right back, 

“Fine,” Bones with hands against his shoulders, shoving himself back. “Fuck me—”

“Bones,” Kirk said and it wasn’t because he _understood_ because he didn’t understand a single fucking word. Bones was staring at him, daring him, waiting for him and Kirk had half his ass on the drawers by the bed and his elbow against the wall with no idea what he was supposed to say. 

(Devon said: _He was that boy that you dream about in high school._ )

"Make it an order," Bones said, "wear that fucking shirt when you do it."

\--

It was (how do I look) when Kirk thought he should have been shaking. Maybe he was and maybe it was only Bones on the bed, against the headboard with his plain white underpants and all his naked skin looking at him that kept the shake to a shiver and the shiver to nothing at all. They were the only living things in a building full of empty rooms and Bones was tipping his head to the right like he was considering it. Like the question wasn't obligatory and no answer was needed but 'sure you look great'. 

No, Bones was the stupid kind that looked and thought and never just sighed an answer. He said: _it's not your color_ with a grin.

"Asshole," Kirk had said. When he turned to the mirror, Bones crawled off the bed behind him, bare feet on the cold floor to stand behind him—it was all skin-warm heat to his back and long arms around his shoulders. Bones was a chin on his shoulder and narrow eyes staring like he was staring right into the mirror until they were staring at one another and not the shirt.

\--

“Fuck the shirt,” Kirk shouted back and he caught it by the collar, yanked it up and felt how it scrapped across his skin and left it raw and pink. The shirt under bunched under his arms as he twisted and the gold peeled off, balled up in his fist and thrown on the floor like it was worthless and wasted. “I’m not a fucking Captain in our fucking bedroom—”

“Oh, bullshit—”

“—Christ, Bones! You don’t even fucking know _why_ you’re pissed off.”

\--

(I don’t like the blue), Bones had said when he was in his uniform in front of the mirror and Kirk was in the chair by the desk watching him tug at the hem until all the seams sat right. He was fidgeting with the pants and Kirk was just watching thinking a ridiculous chorus of (I can’t believe I love him) because he didn’t care if his seams were straight or there was lint on his pants and Bones was picking invisible dust off the stitches over his knees like it made a difference.

\--

“I’m not pissed,” was an angry spit, “I’m not going to—I’m not—I’m not going to stay and watch you fucking decide that some whore Princess on a planet who gets wet over your fucking _eyes_ is worth more than keeping me happy and I’m sure as hell not going to keep you from the Enterprise and your Captaincy just because you think you love me more than you love some giant floating tin can and all the people on it. I’m _not_ waiting around for you to—”

“Leave you?” Kirk said.

Just like that, Bones arm fell at his side, no more stabbing finger, no more eyebrow, no more anger, just that look on his face that must have been what he looked like when she was gone (for good) and it wasn’t a fuzzy horror but absolute reality. “You’re already leaving me.”

No. 

“Say something nice about me,” Kirk said.

“What?” 

Kirk was on his feet now, half an arm’s distance from Bones so there wasn’t any reason they had to shout and there wasn’t anything worth shouting about anymore. He didn’t touch but he got close and he said (quietly, quietly), “If you think any of that’s true, you should leave—I don’t want you to go but I don’t want you to stay if you think I’m going to fuck some woman when I could have you. I never told you no, I never said _don’t kiss me like that_ and I damn well never will. So if you think you’re better off without me you go on and leave, _Leonard_. Before you do, say something nice about me.”

\--

In Georgia, in the dark, on the porch, he said: “tell me about him.”

Devon said: “Oh Sunny,” with a sigh and, “that boy was— He was that boy that you dream about in high school, the kind that’s going to stand outside your window throwing rocks and he’d watch you sleep because he couldn’t stand to stop looking at you and he’d learn all your favorite songs and read all your favorite books and he’d bring you flowers when he took you out for a date because he thought you’d like them. No matter what you looked like or how mean you were, he’d have something nice to say about you.”

But nobody—nobody _at all_ was really like that. Not even Bones.

\--

It was five breaths and Bones’ tongue across his lips and he said: “You’re smart.”

“Fuck, Bones,” and he couldn’t look at the man anymore because looking meant he had to finally _believe_ what he’d always kind of known except Bones caught his arm below the shoulder and pulled him back.

“Shut up, Jim. You’re not smart because you can read a book and you’re not smart because you can memorize anything you see. You’re nothing but an idiot with a library card and a memory and men like Spock make you look like a fucking idiot. You’re not smart because you passed your classes and you never had to _try_.” A pause and a lap of tongue on lips, there was no space between them and Bones said: “you’re smart because you pay attention and because you can get from a to g without knowing b through whatever the fucking letter is before g—”

“F,” Kirk said.

“F,” Bones repeated, “So you _knew_ we were all going to die at Vulcan and you _knew_ how to hurt Spock and you _know_ that I don’t want to leave you but I can’t stay thinking you’re going to figure out I’m not worth it anymore.”

Kirk knocked his head against Bones and it was a pinch of pain over his closed eyes. They weren’t doing anything but breathing. He left his arms at his sides as his knuckles started to throb and Bones was staring at him waiting for some kind of answer when Kirk didn’t have one. He didn’t know a God-damn thing except the tip of his head and the brush of cheek against his as he nudged at Bones’ face—found his mouth blindly and it was _like that_ like everything that scared the hell out of Bones.

When he put his arms around the idiot, there were fists in the back of his shirt pulling at him and Kirk tightened his arms and crushed the space between them to nothing at all. “You’re so stupid,” he said between this kiss and the next one. 

\--

The black shirt went like the gold one, lost on the floor, and Bones was out of both at once, so it was struggling to get off boots and hang onto kissing. When they tumbled it was back to the bed and Bones pushed him on his back on the bed and crawled between his legs. His hands were cool around Kirk’s wrists and he pinned him down as he kissed him hard so it wasn’t like they weren’t fighting because they were.

Kirk said: “what’s my favorite song?”

Bones bit his collarbone and the base of his neck and sucked on it with a roll of his hips but when he leaned up it was his breath and his voice whispering like _singing_ and the words were all _right_ and there was no _way_ that Bones should have known that. “Any more questions?” was a lick down his neck and Kirk’s eyes closed as Bones hands tugged at his pants.

“Yeah,” he breathed to the mouth on his belly and the shivering sensation of anticipation, “why the hell would I ever leave you?”

The bed dipped with pointed elbows and Bones looked up at him because he didn’t have an answer except _she did_ and that wasn’t anything either of them wanted to deal with now. Bones tipped his head down and kissed the skin below his ribs. “Shouldn’t you be on the bridge?”

“Spock’s got it,” Kirk said with fingers in Bones’ hair. “I love you.”

“More,” Bones said to his hipbone as he tugged his pants down.

“Always more.” Then he pulled with fists on hair and brought Bones back up to get arms around him.

\--

There was no sunrise in space so there was no dawn and that meant the only light was the artificial light, like the blue glow of track lights along the chair rail. Kirk moaned into the pillow when the chronometer started chiming and he wished he was nothing but a cadet that could smack it until it shut up but he was _Captain_ now and he had to—

Bones was on one elbow, hand on his cheek and almost smiling, just laying at his side watching him sleep. Kirk was on his belly, arms under the pillow and he stretched just enough to relieve the pressure in his back and shifted so he was almost on his side. “I only regret the mornings I didn’t wake up next to you,” Kirk said.

When Bones snorted, Kirk laughed and it was shove and wiggle and wrestle until Bones was flat on his back with his palms up saying (I give, I give) and he was pink-flushed-and-grinning. Kirk rested against him, body to body and no supporting his own weight. 

“What’s the next line, Bones?” Kirk asked.

“Why do I have to be Fiona?” was nothing but stalling while Bones was nothing but wiggling under him, spreading his legs open like an invitation to invent excuses for being late. Kirk kissed his chest to the base of his throat and whispered (because you are) and Bones rolled his eyes with one hand on Kirk’s back just pulling him closer and closer when there was no space but sweat-space between them. He heard-felt-but didn’t see Bones roll his eyes before he said: “Sugar, you never have to wake up without me again.”


End file.
